Some Sort of Neighborly
by shipping-goggles
Summary: Modern!AU Captain Swan. They're not neighbors, not exactly, and they're not friends either. It's pretty hard to find reasons to bump into the woman who lives next door to your best friend, especially after your only interaction with her has been waking up on her couch one Saturday morning. Sequel to Rude Awakening.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: Here we go - the requested sequel to Rude Awakening! Posting as a new fic because the story I'd wanted to tell with Rude Awakening (a bizarre morning encounter) is very different from the story I want to tell here (a twist on the neighbors!AU), even though that one-shot is technically the first chapter to this story. A little confusing, I know; sorry!

Also, another important note - I usually don't like to post multi-chapter fics without having fully written them first, but then I realized that's probably why I've never actually published any multi-chapter fics, lolol. Not that I give up halfway through (fingers crossed), but I'm working on like three concurrently, which is getting me exactly nowhere. I'll probably regret this later, but for now... enjoy!

* * *

**Some Sort of Neighborly**

_Chapter 1_

Her last name is Swan.

He discovers this through completely innocent means, of course: there's a stack of mail sitting on Robin's counter when he lets himself in after the most confusing morning of his life, and since he's in no mood to calmly scramble some eggs when his adrenaline is pumping like he's just run a mile, he decides to shuffle through it while he waits for Robin to wake up. It turns out that not all of the letters are addressed to Robin Loxley in 3A, and for longer than he'd care to admit, he stares at the name above the line _Apartment 3B_, trying not to smile. _Emma Swan_. The name suits her.

"Why do you have Emma Swan's mail?" he asks when, ten minutes later, Robin blearily makes his way into the kitchen with a horrible bed head and Green Arrow pajama pants.

"Why were you looking through my mail?"

"That's not an answer."

Robin groans as he crouches to rummage through his dishwasher for the skillet. "The postman is a bloody idiot. I get her mail all the time. He confuses everyone on this floor."

"So you've met her before? When you give her mail back, I mean." For a second, he feels a little offended that Robin had never even bothered to introduce him to this woman he barely knew existed until less than an hour ago.

"No, I just slide it under her door – and how do you know Emma Swan, anyway?"

Killian frowns, shifting in his seat at the bar. Robin's always been amused by his drunken antics, but this is this first time he's felt even a little embarrassed. "I may have accidentally broken into her apartment instead of yours last night."

"Really?" Robin snorts, finally turning around to give him a skeptical look. "I'm surprised she didn't call the cops to throw your ass in jail."

"I don't think she needed to. She probably could have beaten me up, if she wanted," he says, recalling the way she had practically dragged him to the door and out of her apartment. She had a good arm. _Good aim, too_, he thinks ruefully, and he rubs the spot on his forehead where one of his shirt buttons had hit him when she'd thrown his shirt into his face, just now starting to feel the sting.

"I bet she could. Apparently she's a bail bondsperson. She probably deals with crooks worse than you on a daily basis."

"What?" The jibe flies right over his head at this new piece of information. "How do you know? I thought you said you've never met her before."

"I haven't," Robin says slowly, and Killian feels his heart sink when he realizes that Robin's probably seeing right through him. "Aurora from 2A told me. She said she'd helped her and her husband with a case."

"Right." He nods with what he hopes looks like vague curiosity, although Robin's still watching him with narrowed eyes, and slides off the barstool and into the kitchen. Making a huge effort to seem casual, he opens the refrigerator to pretend like he's getting the eggs out when he's actually hiding a small grin. Bloody hell, no wonder she was such a hardass. He's suddenly very glad he didn't test her patience further, because from what it seems like now, she could have done much worse than leave a button imprint on his forehead.

When he closes the refrigerator door, Robin's standing right behind it, arms folded across his chest.

"No."

"What?" he says, bewildered.

"No, you are not getting involved with my next-door neighbor."

"What the hell? I'm not. Why would you even think that?"

"You have that _look_ on your face," Robin says with a frown. "The one that says you're going to do something you know you probably shouldn't be doing."

"I'm _not_ going to do anything," Killian insists, all the while knowing that's at least a partial lie, because he's not sure exactly _what_ he's going to do about Emma Swan and how the image of her in his head makes his stomach flip over in his body. "And anyway, why do you care? You've never had a problem with me sleeping around before."

Robin lets out a derisive snort, but he still looks mildly concerned. "I still don't. I'd just prefer not to be kept up all night with loud moaning and banging on the adjoining wa—"

"Bugger off," Killian says with an eye-roll, shoving the eggs into Robin's arms, but then a vivid image of Emma Swan naked and on her back suddenly drifts through his mind, and he barely has time to wonder exactly what kinds of noises she makes when she's wanton and needy before he feels his groin tightening and knows it's time to head far, far away from that line of thought. "She was kind when she didn't have to be, and I'm just thankful she didn't call the police. It was just a question about her mail. Worry about your own bloody love life."

"You're adorable," Robin replies sarcastically. Thankfully, Roland takes that opportunity to tear through the apartment with a loud squeal, barreling into Killian's leg with a force that makes it feel like he's been hit by a small, child-sized train, and the topic of neighbors and whether or not they're off-limits is immediately dropped.

That doesn't mean he doesn't spend the next week thinking about it, though.

He's not sure what it is about this woman, but now that he's seen her more than just in passing, now that he's talked to her and knows how she looks when she smiles at him, he can't get her out of his mind. Maybe he's a little intrigued by her, too – maybe it's the memory of that soft look merging with the memory of her tough attitude and this new knowledge that she's a bail bondsperson that makes him wonder why she doesn't seem comfortable when she isn't on the offensive, wonder if she would have been as nice to him as she'd been if he was anyone else.

Unfortunately, he can't ask Robin anything or he'd get even more suspicious (honestly, though, he has perfectly innocent intentions, but Robin would never believe that), and he's not going to start showing up for dinner every night in hopes of "accidentally" running into her because then Robin would probably permanently kick him out. Besides, he doesn't want to seem like a stalker, so for the week after meeting Emma Swan, he steadfastly refuses to change his visiting schedule.

He comes over for dinner on Wednesday. He and Robin go out for drinks on Friday, and he crashes on his couch through Saturday morning. Maybe he spends a little too long on Wednesday night wondering if she has a nine-to-five schedule and then calculating his commute to arrive around the time she might usually get home, but neither she nor Robin need to know that.

By the time Saturday afternoon rolls around, he cracks. This is ridiculous. He's a fucking grown man; if he wants to talk to a woman, he can sure as hell just do it without all of the secrecy. Or – maybe just less secrecy. Robin doesn't need to know how much this is driving him crazy.

And maybe the universe is on his side, because around half-past five, a lot of voices and occasional crashes start coming from behind the wall of her apartment, and he can tell Robin's getting a little irritated by how he keeps turning up the volume on the baseball game, slouched into the couch with Roland asleep on his lap.

Killian looks over at him from the armchair carefully. "I can go tell her to quiet down, if you want."

"Hm? Yeah, sure," Robin replies absently, reaching for the remote again.

Giddy from this wonderful stroke of luck, Killian rushes out the door and into the hallway, making a beeline for her apartment. It's only after he's knocked that he realizes he probably should have checked his appearance, since he's literally been lazing around Robin's all day in his pajamas. Shit. He's still wearing his pajamas. In a flare of panic, he wonders if anyone had heard him, if he has enough time to run back next door and change, but then he hears her through the door, and it makes him nervous for an entirely different reason.

"Ruby, can you get that?"

"You don't have time for visitors," another voice says, and then the door swings open to reveal a pretty (and, strangely, somehow familiar) brunette in a t-shirt and pajama shorts.

Well, maybe his choice of attire isn't too strange after all.

"Hi," the brunette, who he assumes is Ruby, says, her lips curling into what he suspects is a knowing smirk.

"Hi," he says slowly, unsure of what to make of this development. He supposes it makes sense that Emma has guests, given the number of different voices he'd heard through the wall, and yet he hadn't been prepared to confront anyone else but her.

"Who is it?" Emma's voice comes from somewhere around the corner, and then she steps into the doorway's line of sight, dressed in a tight-fitting red dress and towering heels that make her legs look fucking amazing.

Killian forces himself to swallow.

_Fuck_.

* * *

_Hey beautiful._

For some reason, his words to her are the first that come to mind when she sees him in the doorway.

Not that she's thinking them about him, of course – well, maybe a little, because he's probably the only person who could make a slight bed head and threadbare sweatpants look as ridiculously attractive as he does. It's mostly because she hasn't caught so much as a glimpse of him all week, during which she'd forgotten how _blue_ his eyes were, and seeing them now brings the memory of that first encounter flashing to the forefront of her mind.

_Damn it_. She had hoped to keep Killian and their little morning adventure a secret for as long as possible, so it figures he'd show up just when she has company – and with Ruby's wolf nose for this kind of thing (although she's not even sure what _this kind of thing_ is, exactly), she knows she's already figured at least part of it out.

Fleetingly, she hopes she can pretend like she doesn't know him, but that idea is immediately crushed when he opens his mouth.

"Afternoon, Swan."

"Hey," she replies uncertainly. Ruby's eyes are darting between them with a growing understanding, and it makes her uncomfortable in all the wrong ways. It's almost worse than how Killian's eyes flit down her body just once and make her suddenly feel like she's not wearing enough clothes, although she's not sure if that's entirely his fault.

"Um." He meets her gaze, then looks over to Ruby. "Not to pry, love, but can I ask what the dramatic difference in attire is about?"

"Emma's got a date," Ruby says with entirely too much glee.

"It's not a date," Emma corrects her quickly, and maybe she imagines the way an unreadable expression flickers across his face before he raises an eyebrow. "I'm working tonight."

He snorts, but it sounds more amused than condescending. "Seems like you work at a fun place."

"I'm a bail bondsperson. It's a fake date. I'm trying to catch someone who skipped bail," she clarifies. She's not sure why she's standing here explaining this to him when she's already going to be really late, especially since she barely knows him so it shouldn't even matter whether or not he knows the truth.

Luckily, another voice drifts from the kitchen just in time to save her from thinking too much into it. "Emma, would you mind picking up more popcorn on your way home? This is your last bag."

Only Mary Margaret could tear through her food like a pregnant woman (which, it turns out, is pretty recently accurate) and still find a way to make requests sound nice. "Sure," Emma calls back, eyes still on Killian, who sends her smile that has a small current zipping down her spine.

"Sleepover?" he guesses.

"More or less," she says. "Girl's night. I have the biggest television."

"And yet you're not joining them?"

"I'm going to, later." For some reason, the words come out defensive even though it's none of his business. "It doesn't look like it'll be too difficult of a job."

"I'd imagine not," he says with a solemn nod, but by the way his eyes drift and he blinks twice before they refocus, she feels like the gesture is more in approval than in agreement. Maybe that shouldn't feel as much like a compliment as it does. "Anyway, your neighbor Robin, bad-tempered idiot that he is, kindly requests that you keep the noise level down. He's trying to drown himself in baseball so he doesn't have to think about his ex."

Robin – she still hasn't met the guy, but she remembers the name from the previous week and from the letters that keep showing up in her mailbox, and she feels vaguely embarrassed that this is the first impression he's getting of her. "That won't be an issue," Emma assures him. To make her point, she shoots a meaningful look at Ruby, who shrugs, still looking too thrilled to be comforting, but Killian seems to be appeased.

"Good that. In that case, best of luck with your… date, Swan." His lips twitch upwards in a small smirk, and she's forcefully reminded of the suggestive expression on his face before she'd pushed him out of her apartment the last time. Before she can make a comment about how he must be asking for her to slam the door in his face again, he nods at Ruby and catches her eye one more time, then turns and disappears into the hallway.

She knows Ruby has the decency to at least wait to hear a door snap shut before asking questions, but what she doesn't expect is Mary Margaret, who, having not been present for the entirety of the conversation, is admittedly completely innocent in this, to shout from the kitchen again: "Who was that?"

"No one. A neighbor's friend," she says quickly, because Ruby's closing the door with a wide grin, and she darts forward to wedge it open with her foot because she doesn't have the time to deal with them getting on her case right now. For some reason, she doesn't think _it wasn't a big deal, I conveniently forgot to tell you about finding an extremely attractive stranger asleep on my couch _is going to cut it anymore. "I'm leaving. Bye."

"We're talking about this later!" Ruby calls after her as she grabs her handbag and all but flees out of her apartment, slamming the door shut behind her.

To her vague horror, when she turns towards the stairwell, Killian is standing in the doorway of 3A, hand on the doorknob and eyes locked on hers. The bastard has the nerve to look like he's trying too hard not to laugh.

"_Don't_," she warns him, and it takes her until she gets down to the first floor to stop feeling the lingering burn of his gaze on her face.


	2. Chapter 2

**Some Sort of Neighborly**

_Chapter 2_

He's beginning to think the universe is much less generous than he'd thought.

It's now been two weeks since he's last seen Emma Swan. Not that he's keeping track or anything, but after two Saturdays in a row of running into her completely (mostly) by chance, each followed by a week (more) of being plagued by the memories of her in those skimpy pajama shorts and that show-stoppingly indecent red dress, he's lamenting the lack of routine, for the first part at least. More often than he's proud of, Robin's words about being _kept up all night _drift into his mind unwarranted, which brings an entirely new element to his already inappropriate daydreams about her wonderful choice of attire on both occasions, and he's even less proud of how many cold showers he'd had to take in the first few days alone.

He knows he has no business thinking this way, but he's just the tiniest bit glad she's not engaging in those kinds of noise-inducing extracurricular activities with someone else. When her friend – Ruby, he remembers – had mentioned something about a date, he'd felt a twinge of jealousy he knew he had no right to feel, then a small ripple of relief when she'd clarified that it was an act for her job. He later pretends neither of these sentiments even crossed his mind; he's all too aware that he doesn't have a stake in her life, since he barely knows anything about her – much to his disappointment, Ruby's interesting revelation that she hadn't mentioned him to her friends at all failed to yield fruitful, hear-through-the-wall kinds of results, so he has no idea if she even remembers his name – but that doesn't change the fact that he'd very much like to.

Robin is, as usual, of little to no help. Granted, Killian hadn't expected him to be a wealth of information, given that they _are_ fairly new neighbors (seriously, though, not really – he doubts Robin's gone a month and a half without ever seeing the woman who lives next door to him, and Killian suspects he's withholding any new information because of his completely poorly-judged distrust), but he hasn't so much as breathed a word of Emma Swan since their awkward conversation the morning after he literally broke his way into her life.

Which brings Killian to his current predicament. The Wednesday after the two week mark, he "unintentionally" leaves his leather jacket in Robin's apartment, and at the time Robin had been too preoccupied with getting Roland to bed to notice that, for the back end of summer, a thin t-shirt wasn't going to cut the train ride home. The afternoon of the next day, he stands in front of the diner around the corner from the complex, turning the spare key over and over in his palm and wondering how on earth he'd managed to be nothing but brazen the morning they met. All he has to do is suck it up and pay Robin an off-schedule but completely excusable visit like he'd planned, right down to the tiny detail of Robin working until late tonight (leaving Killian to pick Roland up from preschool later) which means he won't even be home to witness this haphazard attempt at interacting with this woman anyway. He'd purposely made this opening for himself – after two weeks of the universe refusing to do it for him, that is – and now he's honestly considering turning tail, sitting down for a coffee, and trying his damnedest to forget how much he's worried he's being extremely obvious, which worries him even more because this is stupid, and wanting to see someone has never been a _crime_, has it?

Finally, he grits his teeth, ignores Granny's _are you coming in or not?_ glare through the shop window, and firmly strides to the end of the block. He can't very well start feeling anxious every time he comes over to Robin's, especially when he's trying to convince himself it isn't for more reasons than one.

To his complete and utter bafflement, the first thing he sees when he turns the corner is Emma Swan sitting outside the door to the building, tapping away at her phone, long bare legs (jean shorts truly are a blessing with this woman) crossed on top of a huge cardboard box.

For a moment, his stomach feels like it's doing a violent somersault, because really, he'd expected to have at least a little time after knocking to steel himself (although, he realizes suddenly, he should have done a little more preparation about thirty seconds ago, since he wouldn't have had any reason to go paying her a house call otherwise). When he gets closer, he notices a minute furrow between her brows as if she's concentrating or annoyed – a familiar gesture, then – and that the light glints off of her hair and makes it look like sun-woven silk.

"Hello again, Swan," he says quietly, biting back a grin at how she jumps nevertheless. Her eyes lock on his almost right away, and he swears he sees her swallow thickly.

"Jesus _Christ_, Killian, I almost dropped my phone."

"That's quite the parcel you have there," he says with barely concealed delight that, yeah, he's somehow significant enough to warrant her remembering his name right away after two (three?) weeks. Or maybe she just has excellent memory, in which case he didn't just think that.

"Yeah, it's ridiculous," she agrees. "It's also not something I'm carrying up to my apartment by myself. The postman fucking called me down here because he was too lazy, the asshole."

She spouts off a few more choice insults that would have a sailor cringing at her colorful vocabulary, but it just makes him even more amused. "What is it?"

"Minifridge. My old one broke, and my normal fridge is _tiny_."

In a sudden surge of audacity, the words fly from his mouth before he even realizes it: "Need help?"

She looks startled. "What? From you?"

"Sure, why not? I'm heading in that direction anyway."

"Not taking the window this time?" There's the faintest hint of a smile on her face, and it makes the summer sun on his skin just a little warmer.

"Those were… extenuating circumstances."

"You were drunk."

"My point exactly." At this, it looks like she's trying to hide a real smile, which has his heart skipping a beat. "But I'm sober enough to take the stairs now, along with your package, if you'd like."

"It's heavy, though," she says, as if she hadn't just been irritated at the postman who had given her that excuse. "Besides, one of my friends said he'd swing by to help me."

"And where is said friend?" he asks, wondering with a vague sense of dread whether this is a friend or a _friend_.

"Stuck in traffic half an hour away, or so he _says_," she spits bitterly.

"I'd be happy to help, in that case," he offers her, although her answer doesn't really reassure him either way.

"No, honestly, it's fine –"

"Think of it as the thanks I owe you," he says quickly, "for that wonderful night in your apartment."

He'd almost forgotten how pretty the blush is on her cheeks – almost, but not quite – and he has to say while he likes both patient and forceful sides of Emma Swan, nothing beats her when she's flustered. "You have to stop saying that. People will get the wrong impression."

"Did your friend Ruby get the wrong impression?"

There's only a tiny bit of ulterior motive behind the question, which makes the way her pink lips curve into an ill-suppressed smirk all the more confusing, although the fact that she's probably about to turn the tables on him doesn't go over his head at all. "No, actually. Ruby knows you're single. She recognized you from her grandmother's diner down the street."

For a second, he's floored. "What?"

"Yeah, apparently there's a limit to the number of times you can eat dinner alone in one month before people start judging you." She rolls her eyes, and although he's still concerned that it's somehow that easy to tell how just single he is from his eating habits, something in him wonders if she's reacting like that because she can relate.

"Does she work at Granny's? I've never seen her there before," he admits, which is a little worrisome considering how often he makes the trek all the way to the neighborhood just for this one eatery.

"She… recently got a bit of a makeover, of sorts. Maybe you'd recognize her with dyed red hair, crazy makeup?" Now that she mentions it, the pieces are clicking together a little more gracefully, although it's still pretty hard to equate the two images of this Ruby person in his head. "In any case," she jumps off of the box, gesturing with a small smile, "I'm definitely not waiting around in the sun for another half-hour. If you're going to be a gentleman, it's all yours."

Feeling inexplicably as though he's just accomplished something significant, he makes all the way it up the front steps of the building before nearly dropping the package and crushing his foot. It's the first time he's heard anything resembling a laugh from her, and he resists the urge to test his luck one more time just to hear it again.

* * *

The chances of her running into him again were already slim to none.

She had already accepted that when she'd resolved herself to avoid him at all costs because, sure enough, she got _hell_ from Ruby and Mary Margaret when she returned that Saturday night (mostly from Ruby; Mary Margaret had just watched with a knowing expression on her face that was somehow even more concerning). On top of how already muddled she felt whenever the memory of his stupid smartass grin chose to flash its way to the forefront of her mind, that only strengthened her conclusion that Killian Jones was Bad News wrapped up in an absurdly good-looking package (partially _because_ he was wrapped up in such an absurdly good-looking package), and that she would do well to either move somewhere far away until the memory of his distracted gaze over her figure stops making her hot and bothered in the worst way, or keep to herself when it comes to this Robin person and hope to god she never has to see his smirking, eyebrow-quirking friend ever again.

Well, okay, in retrospect, given that Robin _is_ her next-door neighbor, maybe it's not that big of a surprise after all. Still, though, of all the circumstances in which she'd expected to see Killian again, her sitting outside on top of a boxed minifridge definitely wasn't one of them.

He huffs his way up to her (their?) floor in an impressive show of bravado, but she can see the way he's sweating in the summer heat and the muscles in his arms are straining, both only a little distracting because thankfully he chose to wear a black long-sleeved t-shirt today, which is both concealing and opaque when wet. (But also, _fuck_, he chose to wear a black long-sleeved t-shirt today, with fitting dark jeans no less, and she's suddenly very glad she started up the stairs ahead of him because otherwise she'd definitely be staring at his ass.)

Finally, he deposits the box in front of her apartment door with a grunt, wiping his hands on his jeans, and turns his gaze towards her.

"Um, do you – it's still pretty heavy so I could –" He gestures awkwardly, a little out of breath in a way that she refuses to find sexy.

"You can help me bring it inside," she says against her better judgment as she turns to unlock the door, "and in return, I'll get you a drink."

"That defeats the purpose of me doing this to thank you," he protests, but she's already jamming the door open and heading into the kitchen to see if she has any leftover beers.

"The thank-you was bringing it all the way upstairs," she calls over her shoulder. "The drink is for you putting it by the breakfast bar bar, under the counter."

She hears a small scuffle, then the sounds of him lugging the package down the hallway and into the living room, bordered on one side by the kitchen. He sets it down again with a thud and a whoosh of breath, and when she turns around with a cold Blue Moon in her hand, he's stretching out his back, looking around at her apartment with interest, particularly at the couch he'd seemed so fond of nearly a month ago.

"You've been here before; nothing's changed since then," she says, handing him the open bottle in what briefly reminds her of the last time they'd proverbially shared a drink – or, rather, when she'd shoved a glass of water into his hands to help him with his morning hangover.

"I know, I'm just –" He cuts off abruptly as he turns to accept the bottle from her, and she suddenly regrets whatever the hell possessed her to let him into her apartment again, because there's a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead and on the column of his tanned throat down to where she spies a hint of dark chest hair over the top of his v-neck, and the sight makes her feel breathless as if she was the one who'd just carried a hundred-pound refrigerator up two flights of stairs. He meets her gaze readily, holds it for a moment without speaking, which makes the silence about as thick as the humid air, but she suspects that has nothing to do with why he'd suddenly stopped talking. "Thank you, love," he says at last, raising the bottle to her and settling into one of the stools at the breakfast bar. He takes a long swig, during which she turns back to the kitchen to start rummaging around in her cabinets just to avoid looking at him, before he speaks again. "I'm more of a rum man, myself, but I appreciate the gesture."

"It's not a gesture if you've already taken it," she says, knowing without even looking away from where she's filling a mug with water that he's just teasing her again. "Besides, beggars can't be choosers."

"Well, seeing as I am neither, I'll just – are you making hot chocolate?" he asks suddenly as she puts the mug in the microwave, sets the timer, and faces him with a package of hot chocolate mix in her hand and a look daring him to challenge her on her face.

"Yes?"

"It's a bloody sauna in here, Swan. You're mad."

"To be fair, I didn't just go for a mini-workout up the stairs," she points out.

He rolls his eyes but doesn't argue the issue further, and the fact that he seems relatively nonplussed about her hot chocolate drinking habit makes him rise just a tiny bit in her esteem. Instead, he brings up something she didn't think he'd still remember about her from the last time they met: "You know, I'm rather surprised you didn't just bully the postman into bringing this up for you. I'm sure you must be good at getting people to do what you want in your line of work."

"Okay, first of all, I don't _bully_ people. Negotiation is not _bullying_," she insists to his smug face. "Secondly, I had no qualms about talking other people, if not the postman, into doing my dirty work for me."

"You didn't talk me into it," he tells her indignantly, shaking the bottle in her general direction. "I offered!"

"You offered to bring it upstairs, but I bribed you into bringing it inside with alcohol," she says, biting back a smile at how easily he is to rile up.

"I offered that time too! I offered both times."

"Is that what you were trying to say? You were so out of breath I couldn't understand you."

"It was a fair bit of manual labor, Swan," he says, narrowing his eyes, although his mouth is curved good-naturedly; he knocks the top of the minifridge box with his foot. "I put myself at great personal risk to get this bloody thing here." At this, she laughs, and she reaches up to grab her mug out of the beeping microwave, stirs in the mix with a dash of cinnamon before she takes a sip. He throws her an interested look, but she doesn't give him a chance to comment.

"Occupational hazard. It's not uncommon."

"As a bail bondsperson, maybe," he scoffs. "I don't deal with nearly as many on a daily basis."

"What do you do?" she asks, genuinely curious when he gives a sort of half noncommittal shrug.

"I… I'm a musician, I guess," and he has the nerve to sound embarrassed about it even though she's vaguely impressed.

"Really? You sing?"

"And guitar, yeah," he says, scratching behind his ear as he drops his gaze; he's definitely blushing, and it jumpstarts the butterflies in her stomach. This is literally the first time she's seen him anywhere near uncomfortable – even after he'd woken up on her couch that morning, he was more apologetic than awkward – and it makes her feel guilty for no good reason at all.

"No crazed fangirls posing as an occupational hazard though," she quips, and he throws her a grateful look for bringing the subject back home. "So you must not be _that_ good."

"Better than you, probably," he replies, although he's clearly joking now that they're back on banter territory, so she's not that offended especially because she knows it's definitely true.

"I'm a secret shower singer, so I guess you'll never find out."

"Is that a challenge?"

"Not if you're planning to break into my apartment again," she laughs, then wishes she hadn't tested him when his grin turns devastatingly wicked.

"I'm sure I could find other ways that are much more fun," he assures her, his eyes sweeping down her form in a way that has every inch of her skin prickling. Ridiculously enough, even though she knows he's still joking, it feels like her tongue isn't working properly anymore, and she must have been silent for a little too long because after a moment, he continues: "Alternatively, the walls are deceptively thin."

"Yeah, well," she says, thankful for the lifeline, "you'd probably find that fun anyway, seeing as you've already got one tick in the stalker category for breaking and en—"

Her phone suddenly starts buzzing in her back pocket, filling the air with a ringing that forcefully brings her back to reality – or, at least the reality where she remembers he's not supposed to look as at home in her apartment as he does (a habit of his, she's sure) and she's not supposed to just be noticing that now. She puts her hot chocolate down, glances at the screen, then throws him an apologetic look that definitely should not be apologetic, because he shouldn't even be here anyway.

"Urgent text?"

"Yeah," she says, typing back a quick message. "My friend is coming up. He's confused because there isn't a package downstairs."

"Finally got through that traffic, huh?"

"To be honest, he was probably busy sucking face with his girlfriend." At his sudden shift in his seat, she looks up. "Ruby, from the other day, and from Granny's. That's Victor's girlfriend. They just started dating, and their honeymoon phase is driving me nuts."

He licks his lips, which, as brief as it is, is possibly the filthiest thing she's ever seen and makes the heat pool low in her belly, then chuckles lowly.

"Perhaps I'd better leave, then?" As momentarily amused as she is that he's turning it into a question, she's more concerned about how, in a flash of what must be idiocy, she actually considers telling him to go ahead and stay. In the end, though, that's exactly what has her nodding slowly, trying not to notice the way his face falls just a fraction when she does.

"Yeah, probably. You must have had something you came to Robin's for, yeah? Sorry for keeping you."

"Swan, please, it was my pleasure to come into your home and steal your liquor," he says, sliding off the stool, and she follows him to the door while trying to suppress a smile.

"As it was my pleasure to coerce you into carrying up my heavy packages."

She opens the door for him, and he just stands there, unsure, just as she is, of how exactly to end this conversation. It isn't until she hears heavy footsteps echoing up the stairwell that she realizes she doesn't have very much time at all to come up with anything witty, because if Victor sees what's going on here, Ruby, Mary Margaret, and David will all know about it by sundown.

"Um. Later then. Thanks again."

"You're very wel—" She hadn't known he was planning to say something in response or she wouldn't have closed the door, and, mildly chagrined, she hears him chuckle faintly through the wood. At this point, she's not too sure if she can just brush this under the _I'll never see this guy again, so it doesn't matter_ rug anymore, so instead she wonders if they're set on a trend to end every conversation of theirs with a slammed door in his face.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note: I'm so, so sorry for the delay with this chapter - I know it must have seemed to many of you like I had abandoned this fic, which definitely wasn't and isn't the case! The culprit is a combination of school/life, being generally disheartened with my writing, and realizing that writing relationships naturally growing is Really Freaking Hard (I think I'd started this last August/September, and I swear I've written and rewritten it at least ten times over since then). This is also my first ever multi-chapter fic, which means I'm not quite used to writing with the expectation of churning out new chapters frequently thanks to my horribly fickle muse.

Tl;dr - I basically have no good excuse for why this is so late, but I hope you enjoy it anyway, and I really, _really_ hope the next chapter isn't too far away! Thank you so much for reading!

* * *

**Some Sort of Neighborly**

_Chapter 3_

It takes Killian until the third round of knocking to finally get a response.

"Hang on, hang on, _Jesus_," he hears through the door. "Do you know what fucking time it—"

Her voice falters when the door swings open, and it takes everything in him to put on a wide grin and pretend his heart isn't doing the same, because her hair's a mess and she's wearing sweatpants and he's beyond flabbergasted at how she can still look so good even when he thinks she's supposed to look bad.

"Morning, love," he says cheerfully as she fixes him with a resigned look.

"Why am I not surprised it's you?"

"I do have a penchant for giving you early morning surprises."

"For some reason I thought it'd be a one-time thing," she says, but she doesn't seem to be quite as annoyed as he'd have expected any other neighbor of Robin's to be at 9am on a Saturday. Granted, he's not too keen on the fact that she still looks mildly pissed, but if this actually works, he's not going to be one to complain. "To what do I owe the pleasure this time?"

"I… I need a place to hide," he admits with what he hopes is his most pathetically endearing smile. Curiously, her jaw remains set but her eyelashes flutter, and he has barely enough time to wonder if he's almost home free before she snorts.

"Hide? From what?" He gives her a few seconds of staring at her feet to figure it out, and sure enough, she catches on, for the most part at least. "From _whom_? What did you do to piss Robin off this time?"

"I didn't do_ anything_ – and what do you mean _this time_?"

"What happened?" she repeats, crossing her arms and refusing point-blank to elaborate. He rolls his eyes.

"It wasn't me. It was Roland. His preschool class is having a bake sale, and he wanted Robin's ex-girlfriend to come help them make cookies."

"What?" she asks, looking more confused than ever.

"Regina is the principal of Robin's school," he adds quickly. "Roland saw her and asked her to come today because he misses her, and she and Robin are… not exactly on good terms."

"And… you don't want to get in the middle of that," she finishes his unspoken implication, drawing the words out like she's trying to gauge his reaction. Knowing her, she's probably seeing right through him, and as he shrugs helplessly, he suddenly finds himself not wanting to hear her answer. She studies him for a long moment – her eyes are bright and green and narrowed with suspicion – before she speaks again.

"You're awful."

"What?"

"You're seriously telling me you're going to leave the poor kid alone in the middle of whatever feud his stepparents are in?"

"_Technically_ they're not _married_—"

"You know what I mean," she says with a pointed look, but even without it, yeah, he knows. And he'd only had to take a quick glance around her apartment last week when he'd helped her with that package – neat, Spartan, and not a photograph in sight – to know just how much she'd understand, too. "Get out. I need to get changed."

"Wait, what?" He stumbles backwards through her door, her palm warm on his chest through the fabric of his flannel, without having even realized he'd been leaning against her doorframe.

"I'm getting changed, and then I'm coming with you."

"You're… going to come bake cookies with me, your neighbor, and his ex-girlfriend?"

"And Roland," she adds impatiently. "Since you're apparently too much of a child to do it by yourself."

It's barely an opening, but the giddiness pumping through his veins seems to have made him bolder than usual. "I assure you, love, I'm anything but a child."

"Could have fooled me."

"I can make it perfectly clear, if you'd like."

"You _really_ don't know how to ask for help, do you?" she sighs. "I'm just about to change my mind." He laughs at the dark glower that wrinkles her pretty mouth, wondering just how much he can test his luck.

"In that case, there's no need to change, love – you look fantastic already. Unless you really do have a nurse's costume lying around?"

"_Out_," she says with finality, but he swears he catches a glimpse of the tiniest trace of a smile on her face before the door closes in his face.

He lets out a slow breath, counts the wood grains in her door until he's sure he's no longer grinning like an idiot. Realistically, that could have gone a lot better, but it also could have gone a lot worse, and as he lets himself into the apartment next door, he repeats that thought in his head to avoid processing the notion that Emma Swan is about to be rounding out what promises to be the most eclectic group of people with whom he's ever done anything in his entire life, much less bake cookies.

"And where the hell did you go?" Robin demands as soon as Killian passes the kitchen, where he seems to be in the middle of adjusting the countertop jars to a very specific angle. Killian freezes by the breakfast bar, halfway through the motion of swinging himself over and onto the couch.

"Bathroom," he says tentatively, although it sounds more like a question.

"I hope you remembered to put the toilet seat do—_don't sit_," Robin finishes with a hiss, swooping into the living room and swatting Killian away from the couch like an angry mother hen. "I just straightened everything, and I don't need you rumpling the slipcover."

"Bloody hell, _calm down_," Killian snorts. "It's not like Regina's never been here before."

"Actually, she hasn't," Robin replies stonily, which immediately has Killian wishing he was flexible enough to put his foot in his mouth. Obviously she hasn't been to Robin's new apartment before, because the reason it's new in the first place is because of her. Well, also partially because of Robin's ex-wife, who had decided to show up out of nowhere exactly two months before Robin suddenly _happened_ to be in need of a new lease – but since there's no love lost between him and Regina, Killian's willing to ignore that part in favor of the sudden sense of dread that the two women of whom he's most terrified are very soon going to be in the same room at the same time.

"Well, if you're trying to match her impeccable tidiness, you're out of luck, mate. I think you've missed a few specks of dust on the counter," he tries, and thankfully, Robin sighs with a shake of his head. The last thing either of them needs right now is a repeat of six months ago, because he swears this time there isn't enough alcohol in the apartment for the both of them–

"—told you about me," a voice says from somewhere outside, sharp and curt and enough to tear him from that train of thought back to the reality where Robin is suddenly blanching, turning to Killian like a deer caught in headlights.

"Oh, well, I've actually only just met him myself," he hears Emma say, followed by the sound of the door closing. "Neither of us have exactly normal working hours." When Emma emerges from the front hallway, he sees that she's inexplicably taken his advice not to change out of her sweatpants – she catches his eye, bites her lip out of a grin like she's trying to kill him – and that she's accompanied by a dark-haired, red-lipped woman he's hasn't really been too eager to see again.

"Ah," Regina says upon spotting him. "You're here. Why am I not surprised?"

"It's nice to see you too, Regina," he replies with the least sincerity he can muster.

"I ran into Regina outside while I was getting my mail," Emma says quickly, and when her gaze lingers on him, he immediately feels the irritation diffuse in favor of another small problem that has his pulse fluttering – the fact that he is apparently now sharing secrets with Emma Swan. "I hope you don't mind the intrusion. She mentioned she was here to see you, Robin, and your door was open, so…"

"It was unlocked, not open." Robin's first words are, unsurprisingly, not the best ones he could have chosen, and he immediately looks like he wants nothing more than to fling himself off of the fire escape.

"It was open," Regina repeats in a cold voice that leaves little room for argument, and Killian realizes his mistake a minute too late. Stupidly enough, he doesn't seem to possess enough tact to stop himself from glancing at Emma, who returns his look with one that very clearly tells him how much of an idiot he is. Fortunately, Robin seems to be too preoccupied with the current situation to notice. "And hello to you too."

There's a beat of silence. "Regina…" he starts. A flare of panic ignites in Killian's chest at the thought of them hashing things out right now – the last thing he'd wanted to happen was for Emma to get caught in private conversation she'd neither understand nor care about. He's just about to step in, although he hasn't a clue what kind of distraction he'd be able to provide without putting himself right in the crosshairs, but as it turns out, he's unneeded in that particular category: Roland saves the day yet again, his delighted voice echoing down the bedroom hallway and reminding all of them of exactly why they're here. And just like that, the ice in the room seems to melt – Regina's face breaks out into a wide smile, Robin rubs the back of his neck ("Emma, feel free to stay if you'd like. We're baking cookies."), and Emma's eyes glint victoriously as she passes him into the kitchen.

He wants to hook her arm at the elbow and whirl her around, roll his eyes at her because _this wasn't even your idea in the first place_ – but he supposes it's as much her plan as it was his, thanks to her superior improvisational skills despite his apparent insistence on flouncing the evidence of their collusion, and he still likes the thought that they can share at least this. Besides, he's immediately distracted by the fact that, when she shakes out her long golden hair to pull it up into a ponytail, the scent of cinnamon and vanilla wafts towards him, even without the dough Roland eventually manages to smear across her cheek because, completely unsurprisingly, the boy takes to her almost as quickly as he had.

What _should_ surprise him is how Regina, who is usually as prickly as a cactus when it comes to meeting new people, seems to warm to Emma at least slightly more quickly than ice thawing in a freezer. He also seems to be late on the uptake that Robin and Emma seem to have already met sometime in the last two weeks. The only thing he seems capable of processing all morning is the sight of her crouched by the oven with the boy and how it makes his heart swell – and when she glances up at him with a small smile smudged with dough and laughter in her eyes, he forces himself to look away, because he thinks he might be in a whole lot of trouble.

* * *

"The Rabbit Hole."

"No."

"That new place, below Sleepy's Coffee – The Dwarf Tavern."

"Nope."

"Hmm." Emma purses her lips, narrowing her eyes across the room to where Killian's mouth is curved in the most infuriating smirk. "The Snuggly Duckling?"

At this, he lets out a rich laugh that should _not_ make her stomach swoop like she's eaten a few spoonfuls too many of cookie dough. "You frequent bars with the most interesting names, Swan." She snorts indignantly in response, which only earns her a fussy snore from the child resting against her shoulder. With a hint of panic, she shifts Roland until he settles with his tiny arms around her neck, completely under again, just like his father and his father's ex-girlfriend sprawled out on the couch – leaning on different armrests, granted, but she thinks Killian still considers this a small victory – utterly worn down over the past few hours out by the five-year-old monster in her lap. She'd be passed out too, honestly, because 9am was _way _too early to be awake after a 3am stake-out, if it wasn't for the man sitting on the kitchen floor against the cabinets opposite, grinning like the cat that swallowed the canary.

_Waiting for cookies is not a two-person job_, she thinks sourly, but she knows she doesn't have anyone to blame but herself, because the only reason she's irritated is because she's losing and he knows it.

"Why won't you just tell me?" she hisses, careful not to jostle Roland again, and Killian just shrugs serenely.

"It's more fun to watch you guess."

"Making a list of bars I go to so it's easier to stalk me, is that it?"

He makes a small tutting sound with his tongue. "I thought we'd already established that I know where you live and how to break in, love, so I wouldn't need that information."

"Maybe you're just terrible and you just don't want me to hear you sing." She returns his look of mock outrage with a smirk of her own, and while everything about this situation is ridiculous – she's sitting on the floor of her neighbor's apartment with his kid sleeping on her lap and his best friend having an actual conversation with her like they're _friends_ (except _that's_ nothing new, not really, and maybe they are – friends, that is, in the loosest sense of the word) – she has to say she barely notices how her neck aches against the cabinet wood or how hard the tile is on her backside when it's 3pm on a warm autumn Saturday and the only sounds are the gentle hum of the ceiling fan and Roland's quiet breathing and everything smells like cinnamon and vanilla. And she supposes there are worse ways to spend her afternoon than with someone as unfortunately entertaining as Killian Jones.

"I have better reasons for not wanting you to hear me sing," he says, his mouth twisted in a scornful smile. "And I assure you, should you ever have the fortune of receiving a serenade from myself, you should count yourself lucky."

"What are those reasons, then?" She blatantly ignores the second half of his statement, because that would mean having to analyze how the thought of that particular scenario has her gut coiling in the most uncomfortable way.

"You, Swan," he enunciates each word with that horrible accent of his, "are _distracting_."

"_What?_"

"Do you think it normally takes us this long to make a couple dozen cookies?" he continues with a flash of white teeth, and if she wasn't being careful, she'd have grit her own into dust by now. Somehow it doesn't surprise her that he's just turned a comment that had her pulse jumping into an exasperating insinuation she _knows_ he's just saying to get a rise out of her – although that doesn't mean she won't bite back.

"I take it you do this often, then? A single bachelor spending his free time baking with his friend, his preschooler, and his preschooler's principal?"

"I thought ladies fawned over gentlemen doing domestic things." He raises an eyebrow suggestively, but, somehow, it only makes her snort.

"If you want to be a real gentleman, why don't you take this kid off my hands?" She nudges Roland gently, careful not to shift him too much. "Women love seeing men with children."

"I don't want to wake him," Killian says too innocently. "Although if you're saying you'd be seduced by a babe in my arms, then by all means, love, hand him over." She rolls her eyes, but he's already on his feet, crossing the kitchen in two easy strides and reaching for Roland with flour-stained hands. "Really, Swan," he chuckles lowly when he meets her amused look, "if he's heavy, I'd be happy to take him."

"I was joking," she tries, but he's already sweeping the kid off of her lap without a hint of hesitation, nestling his head into the crook of his neck and straightening gracefully like he's done it a million times. She was kidding, she really was, but before she can voice her protest that _seriously_, she takes down guys five times Roland's weight for a living, the words stick in her throat when she catches sight of Killian's expression right before he turns away – tender and warm, his blue eyes sweeping the kid's face affectionately – and she has the sudden feeling that she's intruding on something very private. Hell, she realizes uneasily as her gaze flickers over to the living room, that's exactly what she's been doing this entire time, because she seems to be the only one here who isn't part of their little family – if it was just Robin and Roland and Regina, she might have politely excused herself right from the start, except now she's come to realize Killian falls into that particular category too – and yet he's inexplicably brought her right in the middle of it all, despite the fact that she barely knows any of them, despite the fact that the person with whom she's exchanged the most words is Killian, and even that's barely saying much –

The oven timer goes off, and three things happen simultaneously: Emma jerks violently, Roland starts crying, and Robin practically flies off the couch.

"What are you – ?" Robin grunts over the back of the sofa as Emma hurries to the switch off the timer. "Killian? What are you still doing here?"

"It's still Saturday," Killian replies dryly, bouncing Roland in his arms. When Emma pulls the oven door open, the smell of perfectly-baked snickerdoodles is just enough to make up for the loud commotion going on behind her. "Go back to sleep, mate."

"I fell asleep?" she hears Robin say.

"Don't worry, Killian and I salvaged your son's bake sale." She turns around with the tray of cookies in her mitted hands, returning Killian's grin with one of her own before meeting Robin's disgruntled frown.

"You're making her take the cookies out?" he says accusingly.

"I'm a little busy here." As if on cue, Roland's cries escalate in volume, and Robin rushes into the kitchen to take him into his arms, glancing over to the couch where Regina still seems to be out like a light. Killian hands the kid off, then joins her over by the counter where she starts to take the cookies off the tray to cool.

"They're hot," she warns him, trying to swat his hand away, but he manages to maneuver his way into swiping one anyway thanks to her one-arm handicap. With a maddening smirk, he takes a huge bite, and she raises an eyebrow as he swallows without batting an eye.

"What was that, Swan?"

She's just about to roll her eyes and get back to the cookie sheet – despite his impressive show of bravado, she _knows_ he's bluffing – except while part of her doesn't even want to dignify that with a response, another part of her knows she's not going to turn down a challenge when he's practically handing her the perfect way to one-up him, literally. With her free hand, she grabs his wrist and takes a large bite of the same cookie for herself, making sure to maintain eye contact with him the entire time – that is, until her eyes start watering when it starts blistering the inside of her mouth. It isn't until the tears have cleared after she swallows that she notices that he's gone stiff, his muscles are tensed beneath her hand, and although the smirk has disappeared from his face, she's starting to fear it isn't for the reason she'd been hoping for. Carefully, she releases his wrist, belatedly wondering if she's crossed some kind of line, and that at least has his eyes jumping from her mouth back up to hers.

It feels like she didn't swallow well enough, because that has her swallowing again.

Now is a _terrible_ time to be noticing how his scruff is a lighter color than his hair and that he has a small scar down one cheek, so she does what seems most logical: she blurts the first thing that comes to her mind.

"You tricked me."

He blinks twice and the spell breaks, and when she takes a deep breath, it feels like she's inhaling water. "What?"

"You…" she takes a step back while struggling to find the right words, because between this realization and the subsequent unwelcome distraction, she feels like her tongue is more than just burned. "You didn't have to hide in my apartment. Today. If you didn't want to be here, you could have just gone home."

He cocks his head, but the way the corners of his mouth curve is a dead giveaway. "What on earth are you talking about, Swan?"

"You never wanted me to let you in; you wanted to invite me here from the beginning." The words spill from her mouth as the pieces click in her head, and she suddenly thinks she needs to sit down. Instead, she braces herself against the counter for support because she pretty sure she's going to strangle him with her free hand otherwise. "You knew I'd offer to come help. That was why you mentioned Roland. You knew I wouldn't leave him alone."

He's biting his lip as he considers her, but it does absolutely nothing to conceal the delight spreading across his face. "And _how_," he draws out the word so infuriatingly, she wonders how she could have fallen for it in the first place, and even worse, he has the nerve to lean in so close her fingers nearly slip off the tray, "could I have known that?"

She has absolutely no idea, not even when she leaves with her own small tupperware of chocolate chip cookies at the end of the day, and she's later convinced they must have botched the recipe because it certainly can't be that unsettling thought that makes them taste the tiniest bit bittersweet.


End file.
